Freebirthing

[PlainJane]

Because the US reports infant mortality rates differently-they report up to age 1 where many countries only report the rates of death at the birth of the child or very soon thereafter. If every country used the SAME standards the US would have one of the best or the best infant mortality rates.

Thank You for saying this.

Freebirthing doesn't sit well with me. If my parents had decided to go that route I probably wouldn't be here. There were complications during my mom's labor, and they almost had to deliver me via C-section, but the vacuum thankfully did the trick.

At the same time the hospital almost killed me because they gave me formula (after my mother had already told them she wanted to BF) which I'm allergic to, I ended up in the NICU.

But without the hospital I wouldn't have had a chance in the first place.

I know a girl who's a midwife, and I have to bite my tongue a lot around her. She's the kind who only does births at home and pretty much shuns all technology (think ultrasounds). She always says things like births are natural, and not an emergency, but until recently childbirth was a leading cause of death among woman and children. It might be "natural", but that doesn't make it safe.